“I sent Rare five cassette tapes over the course of 1994. “I started writing music that I thought was video game appropriate,” Kirkhope said. When former bandmate Robin Beanland got a job at Rare, Kirkhope was inspired to begin making music for video games.
Before getting into game music he was a classically trained trumpet player from childhood, and later played in pub bands and a couple bigger British bands, Zoot and the Roots and Little Angels. Kirkhope is a composer known for his work on classic Rare games like GoldenEye 007, Donkey Kong 64, and Banjo-Kazooie, as well as more recent games including Mario + Rabbids: Battle Kingdom, Civilization: Beyond Earth, and Yooka-Laylee.
